Fat Pickins (and probability) - Week 5

Welcome to yet another week of Fat Pickins, our little experiment in math, the wisdom of crowds, and drunken stupors.

Here we put the weekly picks of Fat Man's finest up against a drunk, a mob, and an idiot. We'll leave it up to you to determine the latter.

We also mix in some probability and Baxter McLove's stone-cold drunk locks of the week. If you haven't followed McLove's locks, he's undefeated this season at 8-0.

Before we jump into last week's results and this week's games, let me say that if you wagered hard-earned money on the Broncos game today, I respect you. At the same time, I think you are certifiably loco. Or you've got a rich uncle named Joe Ellis. Perhaps both.

The Broncos have a 50.06% chance to win.

In other words, no one has a clue about this game.

The Results

As a reminder, the IAOFM staff are Ted Bartlett, TJ Johnson, Doug Lee, and David Singer. Of the four, TJ uses his own mathematical formula for predicting winners. Lee, Bartlett, and Singer use their brains. So far, the brains are winning.

The so-called experts are Peter King, Mike Silver, Jason Cole, and Merril Hoge. Right now, they are doing so well, it's hard to make fun of them. Give it time. It's a long season.

Finally, there's the Monte Carlo simulator from Accuscore, the crowd-base Pick 'Em (users' picks at ESPN), and finally, Baxter McLove, our resident sportscaster with a penchant for the ladies and liquor. He'd be the most interesting man in the world, but only if he could find the time.

Ted

TJ

Doug

David

Baxter

King

Silver

Cole

Hoge

Accuscore

Pick 'Em

Week 3

11

10

12

10

12

13

13

10

13

12

13

Games

16

16

16

16

16

16

16

16

16

16

16

Success

68.75

62.50

75.00

62.50

75.00

81.25

81.25

62.50

81.25

75.00

81.25

Overall

40

43

45

42

45

49

54

45

45

45

46

Games

64

64

64

64

64

64

64

64

64

64

64

Success

62.50

67.19

70.31

65.63

70.31

76.56

84.38

70.31

70.31

70.31

71.88

I won't lie. Mike Silver is annoying me with his picks. Someone needs to take him out.

The Picks

AWAY

HOME

Ted

TJ

Doug

David

Baxter

King

Silver

Cole

Hoge

Accuscore

Pick 'Em

PHI

BUF

BUF

PHI

BUF

BUF

PHI

PHI

PHI

BUF

BUF

PHI

PHI

KC

IND

IND

IND

KC

IND

IND

IND

KC

IND

IND

KC

IND

ARI

MIN

MIN

MIN

MIN

ARI

MIN

MIN

MIN

ARI

MIN

MIN

MIN

SEA

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

NYG

TEN

PIT

PIT

PIT

TEN

PIT

TEN

PIT

TEN

PIT

PIT

PIT

PIT

NO

CAR

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

NO

CIN

JAX

CIN

JAX

CIN

JAX

CIN

CIN

CIN

CIN

CIN

CIN

CIN

OAK

HOU

HOU

HOU

HOU

HOU

HOU

HOU

OAK

HOU

HOU

HOU

HOU

TB

SF

SF

SF

TB

SF

TB

TB

TB

TB

SF

SF

SF

SD

DEN

DEN

SD

SD

SD

SD

SD

SD

SD

SD

SD

SD

NYJ

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

NE

GB

ATL

GB

GB

GB

GB

ATL

GB

GB

GB

GB

GB

GB

CHI

DET

DET

DET

DET

CHI

DET

DET

DET

CHI

DET

DET

DET

Kudos to Ted this week for having the guts to take the Broncos.

The Probability

If you want to wager some money straight up with your buddies (or you're just a degenerate), here's what you're looking at with respect to probabilities this week, using Sagarin's Rating System and my own Excel spreadsheets:

AWAY

HOME

FAVORITE

SPREAD

PROBABILITY OF WINNING

PHI

BUF

BUF

6.81

67.55%

KC

IND

IND

8.34

71.42%

ARI

MIN

MIN

2.39

55.42%

SEA

NYG

NYG

12.92

81.49%

TEN

PIT

PIT

2.07

54.51%

NO

CAR

NO

7.49

69.30%

CIN

JAX

CIN

1.86

53.91%

OAK

HOU

HOU

7.69

69.80%

TB

SF

SF

2.77

56.50%

SD

DEN

DEN

0.52

50.06%

NYJ

NE

NE

6.76

67.42%

GB

ATL

GB

8.71

72.32%

CHI

DET

DET

4.89

62.43%

The games to avoid this week were the Chargers-Broncos, Bengals-Jaguars, Bucs-49ers, Titans-Steelers, and Cards-Vikings. Your safest bets? The Packers and the Giants.

Baxter McLove's Stone-Cold-Drunk Locks

1. New England over the New York Jets. "Bill Belichick is still pissed from last year. He'll swallow your soul."

2. Detroit over Chicago."As bad as you think Kyle Orton has been, Jay Cutler has been worse."

3. Philadelphia over Buffalo. "Vick be nimble, Vick be quick, Vick jump over the Fitzpatrick."

dammit. had the Giants in my Survivor pool. Funny thing is, we had 15 people left in the pool, and 14 of us took the Giants. One lucky bastard took the Saints and held on.

Posted by QDoc on 2011-10-10 04:36:16

Hey TJ, thank you very much. I enjoy statistical thinking, though my only academic exposure was an intro in the early &#821680s.

What (I think) would help me most now would be to get an idea of some of the tools you use to gather and manipulate data. You surely use Excel. I think I can probably find some tutorials on Excel, as well as on statistics. But can you give me a notion of where you access NFL data, and how you get it organized into batches that you can load into your spread sheets?

This is kind of a vague, beginner&#8217s question, but thanks just the same. Maybe you can just recommend a good book for a newbie. Thanks, as always. Enjoy the day.

Posted by oorange blood on 2011-10-09 16:59:05

Oorange,

If you want my spreadsheet that simply calculates all of this for you, just email me, buddy. It&#8217s no problem.

TJ

Posted by TJ Johnson on 2011-10-09 15:30:41

Hey, oorange, here you go, I think this was from week 2:

<h3>A Little Probability</h3>

Last week I promised you a little bit of probability, so I don&#39t want to be accused of lying. Let&#39s jump right in by asking what the likelihood is that the Broncos win today.

Let&#39s use the well-known Sagarin Ratings, although any accurate ratings system can do. Sagarin&#39s ratings generally sport a straight-up accuracy of 60-65% from year to year. Going into Week 2, Sagarin has the Broncos&#39 power rating at 15.06. The Bengals sport a rating of 19.27. That&#39s a difference of 4.21 points. On a neutral field, Sagarin would expect the Bengals to win by that many points. However, one generally adds about three points for the home team historically. This year, Sagarin&#39s ranking system suggests adding 2.77. So let&#39s do that. Denver&#39s new rating is now 17.83. That&#39s a new difference of 1.44 points.

Using MS Excel&#39s NORM.DIST function, 13.86 as our standard deviation (developed by Hal Stern), and 1.44 (the spread) as our mean, we can quickly calculate Denver&#39s chance of winning (the actual function if you want to type it into your spreadsheet would be =1-NORM.DIST(.5,1.44,13.86, TRUE). The answer&#8212.5207&#8212is actually the Bengals&#39 probability, but we simply subtract it from one to get Denver&#39s chance of winning.

According to this ranking system, the Broncos have a 47.30% chance of winning the game. In short, it&#39s a coin flip. Tough game to pick? Absolutely.

Posted by TJ Johnson on 2011-10-09 15:29:46

TJ, call me woefully unobservant, but I didn&#8217t notice Fat Pickens in previous weeks. At least I didn&#8217t click. I like it!

And I apologize if I&#8217m being a slow or lazy student, but how is win-probability calculated from Sagarin&#8217s ratings?

I wish Jet Blue still had the $500/all-you-can-fly program. I&#8217d fly to Vegas every Saturday.

Posted by oorange blood on 2011-10-09 15:06:55

At this price, I&#8217d bet against the Saints.

Posted by oorange blood on 2011-10-09 14:58:08

Looks like the biggest toss up games today are BUF-PHI, IND-KC and TB-SF. Should be a fun day of games.

Go Houston!

Posted by Orange and Blue on 2011-10-09 14:22:14

Wow. 50.06%. So youre saying we have a chance. I&#8217ll take Denver! I am most looking forward to NOT seeing Sproles!

Posted by RalphW on 2011-10-09 13:31:57

Tho rarely comment on this weekly entry, I do appreciate it. Thanks, TJ.